Top reads this year: From Middle East turmoil to the great meta-problem
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As the year comes to an end, among the non-fiction books I read in 2024, three were the most interesting and insightful.
Let me start with the book The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman. This joins a growing body of literature on one of the defining dynamics of the 21st century – the transformative impact of new technology. There has been a profusion of books in recent years about the promise and peril of technological advances. Suleyman offers a tech insider’s perspective as he is the co-founder of two AI companies, which has done innovative work in this field.
He shows how the coming wave of technology will take human history to a turning point. The two core technologies that constitute the coming wave – AI and biotechnology – will bring about unprecedented progress and wealth. But their proliferation will also unleash many adverse effects even “catastrophe on an unimaginable scale.” He calls this the “great meta-problem of the 21st century”, which his thought-provoking book examines by focusing on the bind that exists between risks and rewards and how to deal with it.
For Suleyman, human history can be told through a series of waves. A wave he says is “a set of technologies coming together around the same time powered by one or several new general-purpose technologies with profound societal implications.” He argues the coming wave has no historical precedent and is the most consequential. This urges the need to strike a balance between its promise and hard-headed caution.
In discussing the ‘Grand Bargain’ between citizens and the state, he describes the threats posed by new technologies to this delicate equilibrium. This he posits is “fracturing the grand bargain.” Given this and other dangers Suleyman gets to the book’s core argument: how to contain technology’s harmful effects without foregoing its enormous benefits. He sees containment as a set of interlocking technical, cultural, legal, political and governance mechanisms to ensure societal control of technology. Containment, the book concludes, is not “a resting place” but “a narrow and never-ending path”.
The second book I found insightful given the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East is What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East by Fawaz Gerges. This examines the contribution of US foreign policy to the chaos and instability found in the region today. Its main thesis is that the Middle East’s instability is not rooted in factors inherent in the region such as ancient hatreds, tribalism and chronic violence. It is mostly the consequence of America’s disastrous foreign policy decisions and interventions during the Cold War that left a lasting legacy. Gerges writes that the Cold War confrontation between the US and Soviet Union turned the Middle East into a battleground for proxy conflicts, marking a continuity with the legacy of “dysfunction” bequeathed by European colonialism.
The Cold War confrontation between the US and Soviet Union turned the Middle East into a battleground for proxy conflicts, marking a continuity with the legacy of “dysfunction” bequeathed by European colonialism.
Maleeha Lodhi
Washington’s obsessive concern with countering Russian communism, efforts to establish a Pax Americana and secure access to cheap oil drove it to ally with repressive autocrats. These regimes were assured American patronage so long as they deferred to US hegemonic aims and ensured uninterrupted supply of oil. This denuded the region of any postcolonial peace dividend and undermined these countries’ independence. In narrating the story of lost opportunities and dashed hopes, Gerges focuses on key flashpoints that “sowed the seeds of discontent, hubris and subsequent conflict.” They include the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup against Prime Minister Muhammed Mossadegh in Iran and confrontation with Egyptian President Gemal Abdel Nasser in the mid-1950s. The author uses these ‘ruptures’ to reinterpret the history of the region and challenge the version popularized by Western scholars.
Gerges draws this conclusion from his lucid assessment of covert and overt external interventions during the Cold War. Today’s tragic situation in the Middle East would have been very different if Washington had been tolerant of countries that disagreed with its foreign policy and declined to serve its economic interests at the cost of their own.
Another compelling read is Bob Woodward’s latest book War, especially relevant as Donald Trump is set to assume the US presidency for a second term. This draws comparisons between Trump and President Jo Biden in how they dealt with international crises. Woodward considers Trump as “the most reckless and impulsive president in American history” unfit for a second term in office. These views are no different from what he previously wrote in his trilogy of books on Trump’s record. The first two, titled ‘Fear’ and ‘Rage’, were about the chaos in the Trump White House and depicted the former president as a self-obsessed and impetuous leader.
The principal focus of his new book is on how the Biden Administration handled the wars in Ukraine and Gaza although Woodward’s disclosures about Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin – sending him Covid test kits when they were scarce at home– attracted greater pre-publication publicity for the book. The chapters on the war in Gaza portray a frustrated US president, livid with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his constant lies about his intention to escalate the conflict, which Biden saw as inextricably linked to his political survival. “Defined by distrust” their tense relationship is described in graphic detail. Woodward cites several times when Washington’s advice was willfully ignored, including on a ceasefire deal, Israel’s invasion of Rafah, siege of Gaza, airstrikes on Beirut and on avoiding civilian casualties. He cites Biden as telling Netanyahu that “the perception of Israel around the world increasingly is that you’re a rogue state, a rogue actor.”
Despite their disagreements on the conduct of the war, Biden remained firm in his support of Israel. Whatever Woodward’s explanation of his inability to prevent Israel from escalating and broadening the war, this failure was a reflection both of Washington’s strategic compulsion to avoid a rupture with Tel Aviv as well as the limits of a tired superpower’s eroding leverage, with a manipulative Netanyahu getting the better of a lame duck Biden.
- Maleeha Lodhi is a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, UK & UN. She posts on X with @LodhiMaleeha
